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>Pro-life need not apply

>Speaking of ethics in reporting about scientific research, there hasn’t been much coverage of the study out of New Zealand that concludes that abortion hurts women and the difficulty the authors had in finding a publisher, as noted by Stuff.co.nz , an – ? or should I say “the”? -on-line New Zealand news source:

There is great irony in the finding by a New Zealand medical research team that women who have an abortion are at increased risk of mental illness.

An estimated 98 per cent of the approximately 18,000 women who undergo an abortion each year do so on the dubious pretext that to have a baby would be harmful to their mental health. Now this authoritative study suggests that the real risk to their mental health may lie in having the abortion. If the subject weren’t so serious, it would be almost comical.

But don’t expect much public debate over this embarrassing finding. Politicians and the health sector will want to bury the report as quickly and quietly as possible. They have been doing their best to ignore the abortion issue for 30 years because they don’t like to be reminded of the dishonesty and hypocrisy inherent in New Zealand’s abortion policy.

An interesting footnote to the release of the study is that several medical journals refused to publish it, even though it breaks important new ground. Professor David Fergusson, who headed the study (and incidentally describes himself as pro-choice), suspects this was because the subject was too controversial. So much for freedom of speech and commitment to greater understanding of important health issues – to say nothing of better-informed patients.

If no one notices, maybe it didn’t happen. A Google news search results in only 43 articles, and all but 26 are duplicates.